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CHAPTER V.
THE DATE OF THE WRITING OF THE BOWER MANUSCRIPT. None of the seven Parts of the Bower Manuscript is dated. Nevertheless it is possible from its paleographic conditions to determine the date of the manuscript within comparatively very narrow limits. In doing so two preliminary points must be taken into consideration.
In the first place, the Bower manuscript. though recovered from Eastern Turkestan, is essentially a product of north-western India. It is written on birch-bark. The use of that bark, as a writing material, was according to all available evidence, limited to north-western India.74 In Eastern Turkestan, whence the Bower Manuscript has come, the birch which yields the writing bark does not appear to grow at all. With a very few exceptions, all the manuscript books, discovered in Eastern Turkestan in the course of many recent explorations of its ancient ruined sites, are written on various kinds of paper.75 Those few birch-bark manuscript books, which are known to have been discovered in that country, are the Bower Manuscript, the Dutreuil de Rhins Manuscript, a manuscript found by Mr. Bartus, a member of Professor Grünwedel's expedition, and a manuscript found by Sir A. Stein, The Dutreuil de Rhins Manuscript was said to come from the sacred cave on the Gôśringa hill near Khotan; but the story of the native finders has been fully exposed by Sir A. Stein who examined the cave in the course of his first expedition in 1900-1.76 Nothing is really known of the find-place of that manuscript. The Bartus Manuscript was found in the course of Professor Grünwedel's expedition in 1902-3, in one of the rock-cut caves, close to the Ming-oï of Qizil to the west of Kuchar, a little higher up the river Muzart then the Ming-oï of Qum Turá (see the Sketch Map).77 The Stein Manuscript is a recent discovery. It was excavated by Sir A, Stein in the course of his second expedition, 1906-8 in Khadalik, a site north-east of Domoko,79 which was abandoned probably in the second half of the eighth century A.D. As to the Bower Manuscript, there is no sufficient reason to doubt the story of its having been found in one of the ruined stâpas of Qum Turâ, near Kuchar (see Chapter I, pp. xi ff). All these birch-bark manuscripts must have been written by Buddhist pilgrims, or immigrants, from north-western India, Most of them probably were written by them in their original home, in Kashmir or Udyâna, and imported into their new settlements. The Bower Manuscript, on the other hand, as has been shown in Chapter II (p. xx), and Chapter III (pp. xxviiiff,
1 An essay on the date of the Bower Manuscript was published by me in the Journal, As. Soc. Benga Vol. LX (1891), Part 1. It was reprinted, with additions, in the Indian Antiquary, Vol. XXI, pp. 29 ff. The date assigned to the Bower Manuscript in that essay was the middle of the fifth century A.D. In the meantime, much new information has become available, necessitating a fresh consideration of the whole problem. The result is that there now appear good reasons for ante-dating the manuscript by about three-quarters of a century.
14. Se: my paper on " Palm-leaf, Paper, and Birch-bark" in the Journal, As. Soc. Beng., Vol. LXIX (1900), Part I, pp. 32 fr.
75 This remark refers to manuscript books only. Letters and documents, official or private, have been found written also on wood, leather, silk, and other materials, but birch-bark has never been found in use for such non-literary purposes ; nor, I may add, palm-leaf.
76 See his Ancient Khotan, Vol. I, pp. 185 fr.
TT This Manuscript, according to Dr. A. von Le Coq's information, formed part of a library, the mayuscripts of which were found incrusted in a mass of dry mud. Some of its folios have been cleaned and show writing in Gupta characters, closely resembling those of the Bower Manuscript. In another
scripts were found, more or less fragmentary, which were written on palm-leaves. This circumstance is of particular interest because manuscripts written on palm-leaf, in this case of the Corypha Nmbraculifera. (see my "Epigraphical Note on Palm-leaf, Paper, and Birch-bark, in the Journal, As. So. Beng., Vol. LXIX, Part I, pp. 93 11.) are of distinctly Indian provenance and thus corroborate the equally distinct Indian character of the birch-bark manuscripts. Minute fragments of a palm-leaf manuscript, which apparently proceeded from the Qutluq Urda Stupa
see Chapter I) are described by me in the same Journal, Vol. LXVI (1897), Part I. pp. 213 . The manuscript, which is shown in Figs. 6 and 7 of Chapter II, was found in the same cave temple of Qizil Ming-of, but is written on paper,
78 On this site, see Sir A. Stein's Ancient Khotan, Vol. I, pp. 454, 458 fr. 468; also his preliminary report on his second tour 1906–1908 in the Geographical Journal for July and September 1909 (Reprint, p. 17).
